


Deserve It

by Starofwinter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bitterness, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 05:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13380741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starofwinter/pseuds/Starofwinter
Summary: "They didn't deserve it.  Neither did we."





	Deserve It

Rex stood in the doorway, the pale light of dawn bleaching his blond hair even lighter.  Cody joined him, their shoulders brushing as he leaned into his brother.  “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked quietly, and Rex sighed.

“Nah, you?”  He glanced over at Cody, worry in his eyes.

He shook his head.  “Where were you?”  He recognized the distant look in Rex’s eyes only too well, and his chest ached for him.  

“Who knows.  It all runs together sometimes.  Jabiim, maybe.  Coulda been Rishi.”  He shrugged one shoulder, looking out over the farm again.  “You doing okay?”  And there it was, the easy, quick deflection Rex had always been so good at.  He’d almost forgotten how much he hated it.  

“No.  I’ll talk about it if you will.”  

Rex sighed.  “Remember the mud?  Got in our blacks, stunk like osik, made everything seem like it’d rot right off you if you stayed in it?  That’s what I dream about, that and the screaming.”

Cody nodded as he listened.  He knew the mud was just a symbol for every damned place they went, every bloodstained hellscape they found themselves in, everywhere they watched brothers die.  “The screaming gets me too.  Knowing I gave the orders that meant they died, that sticks with me.”

“They want to know why.  Why them.  Right?”  Rex wouldn’t look at him, just stared out over the fields.  “Every fucking night, it's the same questions.  What’d they do to deserve being sent out to die?”

Cody swallowed hard.  “They didn’t.  Neither did we.”  He hoped that would get through, but Rex’s bitter laugh as he walked away told him differently.

“Yeah, keep saying it.  Maybe one day I’ll believe it.”  


End file.
